364 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



The Fat Standard. 



From the view point of the'creamery industry, a fat standard will 

 not simplify matters if one aims too close to the limit. The fault 

 with the present water standard is not that it is not high enough to 

 make it possible to manufacture legal butter. The same thing would 

 happen with a water standard of even 18 per cent. As long as the 

 buttermakers do not watch and study their conditions and keep from 

 going too close to the line there will be work for the Internal Revenue 

 Department. Only a short time ago a buttermaker's letter was pub- 

 lished in one of the dairy papers, in this letter he gave the impression 

 that the present water standard was too low. He stated that he 

 worked the butter until the grain was destroyed and yet the water was 

 high. That man admitted that he did not understand the main cause 

 for high water, namely: destroying the grain or body. 



Give me a young man that is willing to learn and follow instruc- 

 tions and in 10 days after he leaves the farm he can be trusted with 

 the responsibility of making butter that is safe within the 16 per cent 

 limit. The making of butter is not simply the running of the churn; 

 the churn will work the butter In so many revolutions and the man 

 can be told when the churn must be stopped. When it comes to 

 studying the conditions of the cream, the locality where it was pro- 

 duced, knowing how to meet sudden change from dry to wet weather 

 or how long the cream must be held cold in order to get results is 

 where the man that understands buttermaking is needed. 



The water content of the butter can be fixed before the cream enters 

 the churn; it can also be changed by the temperature of the wash 

 water or the amount of working. When the water content is fixed 

 the fat content of that butter is regulated by the per cent of salt. 



The present fat standard of Iowa (80 per cent) is the same from 

 the view point of making a legal product as the 16 per cent water 

 standard. With these two limits it leaves four per cent for the salt, 

 casein, ash, etc., and it is all that is necessary in the making of a 

 commercial product. 



The only advantage of a fat standard (and it is one that is worth 

 considering) is that it places all the creameries on the same basis. 

 This can be said of the water standard. Butter-fat is what the 

 creamery men pay for and it should be the basis on which the butter 

 is sold. The first consideration in fixing the value of milk was butter- 

 fat and not the solids not fat. 



The fat standard has one other minor advantage — that of decreasing 

 the per cent of salt in case the butter is made to contain a rather 

 high water content. There is more butter made that contains over 

 82.5 per cent of fat than under that amount and if one understands 

 the making of butter or has the object of quality in view, yes makes 

 it as it was made 10 years ago, that is, where quality and butter with 

 a perfect body is the object, 83 per cent fat is the divide. 



A fat standard would give as much margin as the present water 

 standard so as to make it possible for the man that is a little care- 

 less or does not understand all of the factors to be considered will 



